Speaking of reading...After my oh so long 3 hour work shift tonight, I decided to go to Barnes and Noble and peruse the aisles while having a coffee. I ended up buying the rest of my challenge books. All except Grendel because I couldn't remember who wrote it. Now that I am home, I see that it is in fact John Gardner who wrote it. Grendel is a retelling of Beowulf through the monster's eyes from what I understand. I've never read Beowulf, but am hoping that I can make it through this one without doing so. I would like to read Beowulf eventually though since I know there is a screenplay written by Neil Gaiman that is currently being made into a movie.
So for the banned books challenge, I bought 3 of the 4 remaining books: Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, and The Best of John Bellairs which contains The Figure in the Shadows. The Figure in the Shadows is the second in a three book series and this book just happened to have the whole series for $9.99. So I'll likely be reading that whole series for the challenge. The reason I picked this book is because there are plenty of Edward Gorey illustrations in the book. Edward Gorey makes anything good :)
And I also bought a copy of Midsummer Night's Dream for the Once Upon a Time challenge. There were about 100 versions of this book at B&N, but this one looked best to me. I was surprised that I didn't already own a copy of this, but alas, I did not. It will be nice to reread this one.
Thank God for the Barnes and Noble member program! I only saved about $5 tonight, but those $5 savings definitely add up.
My two little red poppets wanted to send greetings to Elaine's little red poppets in the UK, so I allowed them to and took their photograph with all of my new books. They say "allo!"We planted a vegetable garden recently which makes me very happy. I love growing veggies. I'll take some pictures when they start growing veggies. We also got a Bougainvillea vine that can weave throughout the patio covering. Looking forward to that as well.
13 comments:
You can ask the people at B&N who wrote a certain book .. you don't have to guess .. that is what they are there for ... lol
I feel stupid when I have to ask who wrote a book, so I don't do that, lol
I can sympathise with regard to the migraines. I used to get them an awful lot. Now, I get them on the odd occasion when I push myself too far and really crash. Hideous. All I can do when I have a migraine is lie on the sofa or in bed, with a DVD on, drifting in and out of consciousness. I can't have silence -that makes it all worse since I get a lot of internal head noise...Gah.
My Poppets are appreciative of the gesture. We all think that the Edward Gorey illustrated book sounds interesting, and that the edition of Brave New World looks nice. We like Brave New World.
Oh and Beowulf - read Seamus Heaney's translation. Tis wonderful.
Veggie growing is great - we'll be doing a lot of that at the new house. Hooray!
That's exactly what I ended up doing, curling up in bed with a movie. Feel much better today, so that's good.
I love the copy of Brave New World that I got. The cover caught my eye and I just had to have it even thought it was much more expensive than the mass market paperback :p
I've taken your advice and ordered the Heaney translation of Beowulf. Thanks a bunch!
Veggie growing is great. The sad thing is, I'm not much of a vegetable eater, so I usually give everything away :(
So sorry you're fighting migraines. I've had them since I was 9 years old and they're miserable. I've got to find a new neurologist, myself; I had one I really liked but he upped sticks and moved to Gulfport. Hmph.
That's one terrific-looking pile of books. I've actually got Brave New World sitting here, to my left. I need to get to it, but there are several other books that demand to be read, first. Bossy old things. I'll look forward to reading your thoughts. Oh, yeah, Edward Gorey's illustrations are so cool.
We're late planting but we've got the tomatoes and strawberries going. It's a start. Growing things is great, even if you don't eat them. The birds and snails usually get to most of the strawberries before I do, but that's fine. I just like watching things grow.
I'd love to grow strawberries. They're one of my favorite fruits.
I'm slowly learning that many booklovers suffer from migraines. It's not just me! Wonder what the weird connection is there? Maybe we work our brains too hard ;p
Sorry about the migraines. I've never personally experienced them but know from friends that they are indeed miserable.
Love that you did a Poppets/book picture. Nicely done. The ships in the background fit in nicely with the whole 'journey' sub-theme of the Once Upon a Time Challenge.
And yes, the illustrations of Edward Gorey definitely punch up my interest level on a book...sort of like the way I feel about Charles Vess.
I stole my poppets idea from Elaine :p I hate the ships! It's the hideous wallpaper in my room.
Gotta love Gorey. I have some Gorey Christmas cards that I'll send out next Christmas.
The Poppet pictures are the Poppets' idea really. They do like posing with and investigating books, little rascals.
I love growing strawberries too. Problem for me is that the dogs end up eating them all...they go from plant to plant selecting all the ripe ones. Makes me smile though, so its worth it.
Strawberry hunting
Strawberry munching
Elaine's a good person to steal ideas from. ;)
I remembered that it was your 'interesting' wallpaper, but it actually does work with this picture!
Elaine, Those are great pics!
Carl, you know, this is probably the only time that wallpaper will work for anything!
Oh, I've got to get on the Banned Books Challenge too. Add me to your book-lovers-and-migraines list. I get them too. When my meds stopped working and I got the migraines almost everyday, my doc put me on propranolol as a preventive medication. It seems to be helping.
I'm on Amitryptiline as a preventative, but it doesn't work at all. argh....
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